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IN the SOVIET FAR-EAST: HANNES MEYER’S SCHEME for the JEWISH AUTONOMOUS OBLAST of BIROBIDZHAN (1933-1934) Dr

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IN the SOVIET FAR-EAST: HANNES MEYER’S SCHEME for the JEWISH AUTONOMOUS OBLAST of BIROBIDZHAN (1933-1934) Dr 15th INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY CONFERENCE PLANNING THE CAPITAL CITY OF A «COMMUNITY OF FORTUNE» IN THE SOVIET FAR-EAST: HANNES MEYER’S SCHEME FOR THE JEWISH AUTONOMOUS OBLAST OF BIROBIDZHAN (1933-1934) dr. arch. AXEL FISHER Affiliation: Researcher, Faculty of Architecture – ULg (Liège) http://www.archi.ulg.ac.be Lecturer, Faculty of Architecture – ULB (Brussels) http://www.archi.ulb.ac.be Address: ave. des Cerisiers, 132/15 B-1200 Bruxelles BELGIUM e-mail: [email protected] // [email protected] ABSTRACT The creation of the first modern-era Jewish state, Birobidzhan, in early 1930s’ Soviet Union, can be considered as a curtain- raiser attempt to propose a socialist solution to the “Jewish Question” which, as a second thought, also had a part in the regime’s propagandistic maneuvers enacted to downsize the rising influence of Zionism in the country. Nevertheless, this experiment aroused a widespread enthusiasm and called for the participation of both Jews and non-Jews to this “small step in the realization of the Leninist policy on nationalities”. Among these stood Hannes Meyer (1889-1954), the Swiss-born Marxist architect and former director of Dessau’s Bauhaus (1928-1930), which – assisted by his “planning brigade” – offered its expertise to the Soviet Institute for Urban Planning (GIPROGOR) from 1930 to 1936 as chief-planner for Siberia and the Far East. Within this context, Meyer’s brigade was entrusted with the preparation of a scheme for the transformation of the small town of Tikhonkaya situated along the Trans-Siberian Railway into the new Capital of Birobidzhan. This scheme, one of Meyer’s last projects in Soviet Union, represents a step in the planer’s line of research focused on the forms and principles of the “socialist city” – the “elastic city” theory – but, unlike his previous schemes, this work also had to face an additional challenge: expressing the new Jewish national identity of the city and its role as the Soviet Jewish people’s Capital city. 1 Cities, nations and regions in planning history How did the planner achieve these goals and what place did modern planning models, the “rhetoric of rationality”, Jewish culture, vernacular architectural and urban forms, the local geographical features and landscape hold in the design and figuration process? According to a widespread commonplace, the first modern-era Jewish State was created in 1948. Instead, 20 years earlier, a fascinating and almost grotesque episode in modern history took place in former Soviet Union: the Jewish Autonomous State of Birobidzhan (JAO) was established. The subject has been treated by recent scholarship (Barnavi, 1992; Srebrnik, 2008, 2010; Weinberg, 1998), but Birobidzhan is now entering the public domain, since even best seller novels are being entitled to this remote region (Halter, 2012). As for Hannes Meyer’s scheme for the region’s capital city, it has received a decent coverage in architectural scholarship. Mentioned in the first Meyer monographs (Schnaidt, 1965; Dal Co, 1969), it also appears in general works over Soviet era architecture and urban planning (Cohen, De Michelis, Tafuri, 1979). These first essays did not include an in-depth analysis of the scheme, but have contributed to open a line of research on Meyer’s Soviet period (Jung, 1989; Richardson, 1989; Maglio, 2002). The later authors generally indicate the Birobidzhan scheme as an advanced stage in Meyer’s experiments with the forms of the socialist city and his “elastic city” theory (elastische Stadt), but also as a sign of the influence of the rising urban aesthetics of Soviet social realism on the planner’s own figurative vocabulary. However, this scheme must represent some important peculiarity for critiques and practitioners too, since Kopp’s milestone book – Quand le moderne n’était pas un style mais une cause (1988) – cites only two works out of Meyer’s Soviet period: his entry for the Moscow competition and the Birobidzhan scheme. This can be regarded as a curious combination which Kopp does not fully explains; the former scheme being granted general recognition in the history of modern urban among other famous planners’ entries for the same competition, and the latter scheme remaining a scarcely known one. Finally, the most recent source on the topic (Kotlerman, Yavin, 2008) – although focused on establishing parallels between the Meyer’s Red Bauhaus in the Soviet Jewish region and his own former Bauhaus Jewish students in British Mandate Palestine and later in Israel, introduces an aspect of the Birobidzhan scheme left untouched by previous authors: the relationship between Meyer’s design approach and the issue of national identity. The present paper stems from a more general research project focused on the role of architecture, urban and landscape planning in several Jewish rural colonization schemes, among which that of Birobidzhan. It does not, therefore, rely on inedited archival sources or on-the-spot surveys, but is limited to the discussion of available historical evidence. Its originality and interest should therefore be measured against the methods of architectural theory and criticism. To be sure, the author is a practicing architect and planner whose interest for chosen historical experiences stands in the attempt to break their secret and establish rational design principles applicable to present-day issues. The paper is organized in two parts; the first one dealing with the wider historical context, the second one focusing on the scheme itself. Beginning with 15th INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY CONFERENCE a short review of the reasons that brought to the creation of the JAO, and offering a few clues regarding the ideological and cultural roots of Birobidzhan’s Jewish community in the early 1930s, the first part ends with basic information about Hannes Meyer and how he reached to the JAO. The next part draws on Meyer’s own report, sketches and plans, following him step by step from his arrival in the Soviet Far East. Through his diagnosis of the planning task and his surveys across the region, to the first planning options, the final scheme is discussed. This paper argues that the interest of the Birobidzhan scheme stands precisely in Meyer’s meditation, in the making, over the issue of expressing national identity through urban planning. To be sure, it argues that Meyer shortcuts the ambiguities of common attempts (Vale, 2008) to establish new collective identities in urban planning by alluding to some vague or irreproducible vernacular and traditional forms. Instead, the viewpoint proposed here states that Meyer’s rationale is one of direct confrontation between the future city’s design and the elements of the local landscape and of the wider geographical setting. Indeed, Meyer’s discourse shows an obsession with the rhetoric of objectivity and ideological issues which obscure other far-reaching results and teachings. Figure 1- H. Klering. Cover, 1939, [The Jewish Autonomous Region, 1939]. A. HOW THE FIRST MODERN JEWISH STATE CAME ABOUT In the aftermath of Red October (1917), the Soviets found themselves heading a multinational empire encompassing more than a hundred ethno-confessional or national minorities. According to early bolshevist ideology, atheism and the downright dissolution of religions should have contributed to flatten the ethnic 3 Cities, nations and regions in planning history differences among the masses so that «all the people of the world could unite» in world revolution. But Lenin had foreseen a potential issue and in 1913 assigned the young Stalin to work out a “Soviet policy towards nationalities” (Stalin, 1913) which eventually led to the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia (1917). Large spaces of autonomy were thus granted to many groups within the Union, provided that the new republics be “national in form but socialist in content”. Since its outset, early bolshevism’s claims for equal rights and tolerance, paired with the open condemnation of Tsarist-era pogroms and racial violence, were positively perceived by Russian Jewry. But after 1905’s Russian Revolution, First World War and Civil War, this community experienced high rates of unemployment and suffered regular tides of famine. The establishment of the lishenets (disenfranchised) status only added to this critical situation. Even if massive emigration after 1882 had radically decreased the Jewish population, in the Soviet era, the “Jewish Question” remained a Russian question. Nevertheless, according to Stalin, the Jewish people could not lay claims to national autonomy within Soviet socialism because, apart from a peculiar language, culture and economic structure, it fell short of a “territory of its own”; the last feature held as necessary to establish a “national identity”. Consequently, the Soviet policy towards the Jews was limited to their normalization: the transition of the luftmensch from traditional commercial and financial activities to a “truly” productive role in industry, craftsmanship or farming. However, from 1921 onwards, a shift occurred in the official attitude. The leadership of the Russian communist party’s Jewish section1 was searching a land in USSR susceptible to host a future autonomous State for the Jewish people and represent the basis for the full acknowledgement of its «national identity». At the same time, the Central Committee was dealing with other issues: the success of Jewish agricultural colonization in Crimea, southern Ukraine and Belorussia was causing discontent among local populations2; Zionist ideology – considered “bourgeois” and anti-revolutionary – was making its way among Jewish masses; on top of all, the open battlefront with Japan in the Far East threatened to break at any moment. 1. The Yevsektsiya: short form of Yevreyskaya sektsiya (litt. Jewish section). 2. See, among others: Dekel-Chen, 2005. 15th INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY CONFERENCE Figure 2- David P. Shterenberg (Ukranian-born Russian, 1881-1948). «Na stroike MTS i sovkhozov / MTS: About the building of Machine and Tractor Stations and Soviet collective farms», 1936, [MTS: Mashinno-traktornaya stantsiya special issue, No.
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